Happy Sunday y'all,
I noticed that seem to like it when I write "off the cuff" emails where I brain dump all the things that I'm currently thinking about. Today, not surprisingly, itâs all about GenAI. So, below are all the current thoughts I have rolling around about the subject. I invite you to take what serves you, and leave what does not. đ
1: Itâs okay to be scared.
We're living through a gigantic paradigm shift as an industry. Itâs okay to freak the f*ck outâŠitâs freaky. Iâve been trying to find an earlier time in my life to compare it to - and in all honesty the last time I saw things this shook up was during the early adoption of the internet. One year in high school, our school suddenly got a computer grant; fields of PCs appeared seemingly overnight. Whole new realms of study and new job titles quickly appeared in the years that followed. Thousands and thousands of get-rich-quick startups rose and fell. Funding was being thrown around like crazy. There was great fear and disapproval from many, and there were also a lot of people who made poor judgement calls in the name of staying on top of a trend. Weâve all been suddenly reminded that we were never standing on dry land â only floating atop a calm swell in the middle of an ocean. Itâs okay to feel both exhilarated by the wave and terribly exhausted, panting for air.
2: The world still needs professionally-skilled creative teams.
GenAI canât replace us, because all GenAI does is serve a bunch of pretty (or creepy) options that are parroted back to us in response to our prompts. Thatâs only an existential threat if you believe thatâs what creatives do or what our main purpose is. Someone still needs to figure out what weâre asking the AI to do (strategy, creative direction), manage the results of the prompts (design, editorial, project management) and implement it effectively (development, design, editorial), and guess what? -The people most qualified to do that, the people whoâll get the best results - are the people who have that experience to begin with. Even if we collectively move to replace all the previous software weâve learned with brand new GenAI softwares, so what? Since when have we not had to adapt to changes in software?
3: I donât place great odds on most of the GenAI startups.
Why not? Weâre collectively economically pinched right now, and it seems like thatâs only going to get worse. I predict that the ones who are going to fair the best are the ones that figure out how to collaborate with established softwares and get integrated with them - because we still need all those straightforward editing capabilities. I donât think most people can afford to have a dozen AI subscriptions in addition to Adobe Creative Suite, Canva and Figma. Imo, what would truly be groundbreaking is coming up with a software that did everything but didnât cost thousands of dollars a year.
4: Use GenAI to solve problems that people really face every day.
Donât do a one-off test on something that you wouldnât really use. Look for the biggest, snarliest, or most annoying problem or process you can think of to get AI to solve, and then see if you can make a dent. Like, if you think GenAI would be a great way of making a blog, then run an experiment where you generate an entire blog and post regularly several times. What kind of results and insights do you get? If you want to successfully integrate GenAI into your creative teamsâ processes, then you will need to run specific tests to gain insights on exactly how to achieve that. (Of course I have thoughts, but that will have to be a different email).
5: Donât listen to any ONE person on the subject of AI, including me.
Run your own tests, make your own judgements. The social feeds are polluted with influencers being paid to promote things, creative professionals who have been peer-pressured into putting every SEO-friendly-AI-search-word possible into their resumes lest they be deemed irrelevant, and then on the other hand, those who are vehemently opposed to the mere whisper of the word AI. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
6: Human beings tend to place more value on the works of human beings.
So when the pendulum swings too far in the direction of things being automated (movie trailers entirely generated from AI where people have 7 fingers, etc), thatâs when youâre going to see intensely negative reactions from the audience. Because to them it feels like you didnât give a sh*t about making a connection with them, you didnât actually think through your material, you didnât think about the other human beings involved. This doesnât mean that you canât or shouldnât use AI at all. But it needs to be used thoughtfully. Inappropriate use can lead to a dramatic drop in the value of your content. In the end, humans are buying the thing, and we still need to cater to them even if weâre using AI to help us scale.
7: Think about the bigger picture.
Thereâs a HUGE demand at this point for creative assetsâŠeveryoneâs got a side business to brand, or even when they donât, most people still have to brand themselves as individuals on various platforms. Thereâs a fundamental disconnect between the budget of an individual person versus what it costs to employ a creative team. Even in a corporate setting, a small change in direction to a source asset can result in a need to change 1,000 OTHER assets, which can be very expensive. So, itâs become more important than ever to make things more efficient, and to empower people who donât have design or creative backgrounds to edit or post things themselves. And I think thatâs why we see such success from prosumer softwares like Capcut, Canva, Lensa, Loomy, MotionLeap, etc and now certain GenAI softwares. Itâs the result of a very real need to make it possible for ANYone to make creative âstuffâ. Traditional creative softwares have often failed to properly recognize and keep up with that demand, so I do think weâre going to some of them disappear. I donât think any of this is a bad thing. I think there is plenty of room for both the individual content creator and the high-level professional. One doesnât replace the other; weâre part of the same ecosystem.
8: You donât have to give in to peer pressure to pick a side.
I love technology. I love gadgets. I love rushing to try whatever the latest thing is. GenAI has been no different. But I also hold a lot of concerns about the ethical impact of GenAI and how it is being used by bad actors. I donât HATE GenAI, I donât LOVE GenAI. Itâs just a tool. How we use it is what determines the results.
9: GenAI isnât the only AI that exists.
Itâs just one category of AI. A lot of the stuff that isnât included in that category has already been so successfully integrated into our society that we just think of that as being âhow hi-tech stuff worksâ rather than being specifically AI. If you feel so-so about GenAI, learn more about the rest of the field.
OkayâŠIâm spent. If you made it to the endâŠthanks for reading!
XOXO
Cathy